


NOT a journal (thank you very much)

by Accal1a



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Internal Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 15:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14381502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: Sammy takes Ben's "Who is Sammy Stevens?" badly, and tries to come up with the answer to that question all on his own.





	NOT a journal (thank you very much)

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to maximise the angst, please listen to [this](https://open.spotify.com/user/lth4pha3ytn4di7okg6fjcpb9/playlist/3ANgS1QeDsBictrJuczg1b) at the same time.

Sammy screeched into the gas station, furious with himself for not filling up the car before the show. Except of course he hadn't known that he was going to want to be home immediately after the show...or _during_ the show as it turned out. He'd thought he'd have a leisurely jaunt down the mountain, pump some gas, pick up something to eat and then fall asleep as soon as he got back. 

Except now he was vibrating with rage and just wanted to be home, he wanted to slam open his front door so hard that he'd lose his security deposit when the handle banged into the wall behind it. He wanted to pull a glass too quickly out of the cupboard and smash another one at the same time. He wanted to pull the Scotch out of the cupboard above the sink and pour himself a hefty draft of it and sit on the sofa seething. He did _not_ want to be in the stupid filling station having to simmer lest he punch the clerk who was far too friendly for this time of the morning. It was the middle of the night for God's sake, _how_ were they so friendly?

He dropped a pint of milk, a microwave meal and a chocolate bar onto the counter. He was about to tell the other man what pump he had been at, but as it was the middle of the night, and he was the only customer there, he didn't bother. It meant he didn't have to talk. He didn't trust what might come out if he did.

Just before he thrust his cash at the man, he happened to glance at the impulse buy display to the left of the till. He always thought people who were lulled into those purchases were idiots. Who needed a set of stickers for their windscreen, or a pump that was going to break the first time you tried to use it, or a 'strong' torch which was so flimsy that the first time you dropped it it flickered out and died, never to be seen again? Except this time, he found his hand reaching out for something on the rack, almost without conscious thought. It was a small, blue, ring-bound notebook and before he could think too much of it, he'd thrown it on top of his other goods.

The clerk rang up the goods and gave Sammy his change and with a far too cheery goodbye he watched the man stalk back to his car and tear out of the lot. He shrugged and turned up the radio.

~~~

When Sammy got home, his rage had downgraded to mere seething, and so the front door to his apartment, and subsequently the wall behind it, were safe from his wrath. He put the purchases down on the kitchen counter, not hungry in the slightest. He threw the microwavable meal and the pint of milk into the fridge.

He did pour some scotch, but it was more out of habit than anything else. He moved over to the sofa and put the glass on the coffee table where it sat discarded, the amber liquid glinting in the too bright lights of his living area. He had brought the chocolate bar and the notebook towards his favourite comfy chair too, and they were quickly discarded on the coffee table also.

After several minutes of staring at nothing, Sammy stood again and scrabbled in the miscellaneous kitchen drawer for a Biro. When he had found it, he walked back to his chair, sitting down and holding the pen in his hand.

He stared at it for a long time before reaching forward to pick up the notepad. He didn't open the piece of stationary, just held them both, as if afraid to put one towards the other.

After another few minutes, and a gulp of the scotch, Sammy opened the book. The faint lines on the page reminded him of being at college, and he had a sudden crazy thought that he should go back to college, find a college a long way away from here and just _learn_ ; but he knew he wouldn't. He knew he couldn't. He had to be here, just in case.

He sighed, then wrote the words that had been echoing around his head for the last hour. The words his best friend had written in a similar notebook.

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

With the words so starkly staring at him, he felt the rage rise again within him. How _dare_ Ben ask that question? How _dare_ he not trust him? How _dare_ he think that he would have anything to do with Emily's disappearance? How _dare_ he?

How dare he? Sammy started to think again, but then stopped because it wasn't as if he'd given Ben any reason to trust him. He'd kept everything close to his chest, not opened up to his best friend. He couldn't really blame him for thinking he didn't know him, because he _didn't_ know him, not really. He knew him on the surface, he knew what Sammy had let him see...and that was his own fault. 

Sammy stared at the four words on the page, then wrote them again.

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

He looked at the two questions in front of him, really looked at them, and started to wonder. Who was he, really? He was someone who had loved, he was someone who had lost, he was a semi-good radio show host, he was a sceptic, he was a friend. All of those things were true, but they didn't really mean anything. Surely they were merely surface attributes? It was like saying he had long hair and a penchant for sarcasm. It was true, but it wasn't who he was. Was it?

As if it would help him understand himself a bit better, he wrote the words again.

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

He felt like he might have lost the answer to that question when Jack disappeared. Maybe Jack had known, and that knowledge had followed him into the void with him. Maybe when Sammy had privately thought, when he was lying in bed at night, that his heart was in the void with Jack, that was what his mind had meant. Jack had taken that piece of self awareness with him, and without it he couldn't work it out on his own.

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

Every time he wrote the question he got more and more despondent. His hands ran through his too long hair, tugging it slightly and hoping the pain would inject some sort of sense into the four words that were burning into his psyche.

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

~~~

Sammy had been staring at the same four words on the page for a long time, he wasn't even sure how long. Long enough that the hunger that he hadn't had when he'd walked into the apartment to come back with full force. He briefly considered standing up so that he could heat the meal in the fridge, but he couldn't, seemingly pinned by the four words which now seemed to be mocking him.

He reached forward and picked up his drink, downing it in one go, as if that would help him to answer the question. All it did was make his eyes water, which he thought might be a slippery slope. If his eyes started watering now he might not be able to get them to stop.

Sammy dropped the glass back on the table and scrubbed his eyes hard, pushing the moisture away with the backs of his hands and almost poking his eye out with the pen in the process. He looked down at the pen in his left hand and the book that was still resting in his lap and he suddenly knew the answer. Or rather he _didn't_ know the answer, that was the point.

In his slanted script, he wrote the question down again, the pen digging into the paper so hard it nearly tore the page.

_Who is Sammy Stevens?_

He waited a moment, as if this wasn't the momentous occasion of self realisation that it was.

“Who is Sammy Stevens?” He said out loud, his voice choked.

He wrote three clear words in block capitals beneath the repeated question, the writing careful and pronounced, not the scrawl that had been getting steadily messier the further down the page he got.

**I DON'T KNOW.**


End file.
